Interested to hear how others approach alternative mixes. So you've finished your mix, bounced it down to stereo, all done etc. Then you decide to start from scratch again and do a brand new mix with the same base tracks but using different effects, edits, automation etc. Do you simply do a Save As, for example, which is what I do, or do you keep a separate version of just the raw tracks perhaps? Or do you keep working in the same project, duping the existing tracks and so on? Or something really clever and simple I'm too stupid to think of?

After I've completely finished comping/editing, I save a project as *nameofsongEDITED*. And then start my mix in a duplicate of that project. So if something goes horrifically wrong, or I want to start a fresh mix, I just do a save as of that original edited version.

All tracks as recorded are saved in a RAW folder and are left untouched. Then I always have the raw material to return to if I don't like how things have gone.

Alternative processing/mixes etc are stored BOTH as separate projects AND as separate mixes. These are date/time stamped and also have a brief description - eg reverb characteristics, effects, whether any instrument was dropped-out altogether etc.

By keeping both the project and the mix it gives me the flexibility to remix or fiddle with a specific sound as I want to.

I'll usually end up with 4-7 versions of both projects and mixes even for the simplest of recordings. Anything more complicated has commensurately more. Disc space is cheap; after a suitable interval I 'prune' files.

Mike Stranks wrote:All tracks as recorded are saved in a RAW folder and are left untouched. Then I always have the raw material to return to if I don't like how things have gone.

Alternative processing/mixes etc are stored BOTH as separate projects AND as separate mixes. These are date/time stamped and also have a brief description - eg reverb characteristics, effects, whether any instrument was dropped-out altogether etc.

By keeping both the project and the mix it gives me the flexibility to remix or fiddle with a specific sound as I want to.

I'll usually end up with 4-7 versions of both projects and mixes even for the simplest of recordings. Anything more complicated has commensurately more. Disc space is cheap; after a suitable interval I 'prune' files.

Alternative processing/mixes etc are stored BOTH as separate projects AND as separate mixes. These are date/time stamped and also have a brief description - eg reverb characteristics, effects, whether any instrument was dropped-out altogether etc

Interesting! Mike, I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean here. What do you mean by storing as a 'separate mix' as against a separate project? And where do you put your description? (I use Logic Express by the way.)

One problem I have had is running out of disc space. Say I have a set of songs (raw tracks and edited versions) in folders on an internal drive, say, the D drive. Then I would like to move those to an external drive for storage and free up my faster internal drive for new projects. But once I move the raw files to a different drive, the DAW (eg, Adobe Audition 3) does not know where to find them and the edited versions don't work. So it seems once I start editing, I can't move the original tracks to a different drive. How do people (or other DAWs) deal with that?

Jorge wrote:One problem I have had is running out of disc space. Say I have a set of songs (raw tracks and edited versions) in folders on an internal drive, say, the D drive. Then I would like to move those to an external drive for storage and free up my faster internal drive for new projects. But once I move the raw files to a different drive, the DAW (eg, Adobe Audition 3) does not know where to find them and the edited versions don't work. So it seems once I start editing, I can't move the original tracks to a different drive. How do people (or other DAWs) deal with that?

In Cubase you can set a new project folder and backup the arrangement which will then be the new target folder for audio files. I would expect that Audition can do this, but I would suggest referring to the manual. On Cubase it is in the File menu, so have a look there first.

If you're going to work on a song again you have to bring all of the data back, at least initially. Most DAW's work non-destructively, so any amount of editing still references the original, raw data. What you see as edited bits of audio are actually selected parts of the raw data.

Cubase has a neat way of cleaning up the data and creating a new Project folder with only the data necessary to reproduce the arrangement as is. It's a great way of cleaning up and reducing the required data to its minimum. The downside is that there's no going back, so make sure you back the original up before you commit to the new, sanitised version.

Richie Royale wrote:In Cubase you can set a new project folder and backup the arrangement which will then be the new target folder for audio files. I would expect that Audition can do this, but I would suggest referring to the manual. On Cubase it is in the File menu, so have a look there first.

So instead of just copying the folders to the external HD and deleting them on the internal HD, you can do a backup within Cubase that re-maps the DAW to the new folder and file locations and allows you to continue your editing of the old files and arrangements in the new folder on the new external HD?

Jorge wrote:So instead of just copying the folders to the external HD and deleting them on the internal HD, you can do a backup within Cubase that re-maps the DAW to the new folder and file locations and allows you to continue your editing of the old files and arrangements in the new folder on the new external HD?

Yep. You could erase the original, but I tend not to. Once copied across, Cubase will have duplicated the audio files, so any changes made will affect the new project and not the original.

Sure for alternative mixes, you would want to keep all versions, but they can start taking up lots of disc space really quickly. My question about moving some or all of the files to another drive to free up space on the internal HD necessarily involves deleting the old files in the old locations. It is good to know Cubase can re-save the files to a new location, I will have to check Audition and Pro Tools to see how they handle that problem.